


non survivor

by cheinsaw



Series: dreamscapes [1]
Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Death, Fire, Gen, Immortality, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2722679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>reach for the moon, immortal smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	non survivor

**Author's Note:**

> if you can handle noisy, repetitive music, i would like you to listen to this arrange of mokou's theme while reading this mess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o2-p-VK8gU

you're burning again. you almost don't notice but you are burning up and flames lick your skin, charring, destroying you. there is no pain. you forgot how to feel pain long ago. all there is anymore is the fire, a fire that comes from within, scorching you from the inside out.

you have died, and risen again once more.

you pick yourself up from the ashes on the forest floor, whole and new, pure again. the moon is bright and full, and the chill of the night air on your bare skin is comforting. the freezing has sunk deep into your bones by the time you reach your front door.

the first time you burned you were eleven. your father had come home in a rage, rejected by a princess he had planned to marry. you hid yourself away silently, of course; it was the only thing you were good at as a child. that didn't stop him. he kept telling you, over and over and over, how it was time for you to get married already so he wouldn't have to see you anymore, wouldn't have to feed you or shelter you or look after you, worthless girl child.

in your chest, the embers began to glow.

you met her soon after, the princess. she was every bit as beautiful as the rumors said. she hated you right away. you vowed to break her in return.

you're twenty and your family is all but gone, your name synonymous with shame and ruin. the princess has gone back to the moon, where she says she belongs, leaving nothing but a very special gift for the emperor. this is all that's left, all that you can do for revenge anymore, and so you stumble to the top of the mountain where the emperor's soldiers have taken it.

this is when you learn that the gift was the elixir of life, and they plan to destroy it. no one should have that power, they say, no one should be doomed to live forever.

you steal it.

you strangle the head guard in his sleep and you steal the elixir, downing every last drop. immediately your body erupts in pain, burning, torturing you from the inside out, and you can't even scream. when you wake up again, you ache, and you are in a pile of warm ashes.

you can never die.

everything hurts so much.

not that life is completely worthless to you, new immortal. your hair grows and lightens, and you never cut it, a reminder that you have existed. you burn, and burn, and burn. there are still small joys to be had: the sprouts of bamboo peeking out of the ground after the end of winter, the taste of a ripe strawberry in the warm sun, the touch of a girl who loves you but becomes a monster on every full moon. but time passes too quickly to really savor any of it. the bamboo will shoot to the sky and die, the fruit will spoil in the heat, the girl's life will end long before yours.

the only constant is the princess. she is still alive, still just as young and as cunning. she happily fights you to the death every night. you are happy to kill her in return.

sometimes you wish you'd died long ago, and never come back to life. you wish you'd thrown yourself into the volcano instead of stealing the elixir and an innocent man's life. sometimes, you think it'd be better that way. but still, you live, and you breathe.

you burn. and you rise.

 

 


End file.
